DOGE administrator Amy Gleason makes rare appearance at White House health event

When the Wednesday event began, Trump was seated front and center in the White House East Room, flanked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “Crypto Czar” David Sacks, Medicaid administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Gleason.

“Too many patients are forced to remember all of the doctors that they’ve been to and to log into portal after portal, repeating their story at every visit, and they don’t have the digital tool to help them stay well,” Gleason said when her time to speak arrived. “Today, thanks to President Trump, we’re changing that.”

Oz credited Gleason with pulling together much of the discussed initiative, which involved voluntary coordination between 60 different healthcare CEOs to streamline the processing and storage of digital health records.

DOGE was controversially slashing government budgets and jobs at the time, and the White House insisted that Musk was not the actual head of the department. It remained a mystery who held the position until press secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed to the Washington Examiner that it was Gleason.

According to public records, Gleason had been a senior adviser to the United States Digital Service since January, the organization that the Trump administration transformed into DOGE. And according to Gleason’s LinkedIn profile, she also served as a digital services expert for the then-USDS during the first Trump administration from 2018 to 2021.

Beyond that, little was known about her role and how much authority she had.

Gleason enjoyed a low profile as DOGE was thrust into the spotlight and Musk and Trump eventually fell out. But she reappeared at the healthcare announcement this week.

She began her remarks by recognizing her daughter, who was seated in the audience and was diagnosed 15 years ago with a rare disease that left her seeing multiple doctors.

“At some point, she couldn’t stand up off the floor or walk up the stairs, and we still had no answers,” Gleason said. “I carried a binder of paper records to every doctor’s appointment so that I could keep them aligned. I truly believe that if one of those doctors had been able to see her whole history, they would have diagnosed her faster.”

Gleason also said that artificial intelligence could have “connected the dots” that various doctors missed.

“Her disease is very rare, but her experience is very common,” Gleason added. “And that is what we’re here to fix today.”

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Trump and Kennedy insisted that the digital medical records would be voluntary for patients, who can choose not to participate in the system if they desire. But the promise is that those who opt in can quickly upload all their records to a new doctor’s office and into AI models to rapidly speed up their health treatment.

“Let’s help make health tech great again,” Gleason said. “Or in this case, maybe it’s for the first time. Thank you, President Trump.”